Pearls of Thought Part 54

~Teaching.~--Count it one of the highest virtues upon earth to educate faithfully the children of others, which so few, and scarcely any, do by their own.--_Luther._

The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

~Tears.~--The overflow of a softened heart.--_Madame Swetchine._

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.--_Bible._

In woman's eye the unanswerable tear.--_Byron._

Blest tears of soul-felt penitence.--_Moore._

G.o.d washes the eyes by tears until they can behold the invisible land where tears shall come no more. O love! O affliction! ye are the guides that show us the way through the great airy s.p.a.ce where our loved ones walked; and, as hounds easily follow the scent before the dew be risen, so G.o.d teaches us, while yet our sorrow is wet, to follow on and find our dear ones in heaven.--_Beecher._

The kind oblation of a falling tear.--_Dryden._

A penitent's tear is an undeniable amba.s.sador, and never returns from the throne of grace unsatisfied.--_Spencer._

Fate and the dooming G.o.ds are deaf to tears.--_Dryden._

We praise the dramatic poet who possesses the art of drawing tears, a power which he has in common with the meanest onion.--_Heinrich Heine._

Her tears her only eloquence.--_Rogers._

Eye-offending brine.--_Shakespeare._

The tears which flow, and the honors that are paid, when the founders of the republic die, give hope that the republic itself may be immortal.--_Daniel Webster._

All my mother came into mine eyes, and gave me up to tears.--_Shakespeare._

The tear that is wiped with a little address may be followed, perhaps, by a smile.--_Cowper._

Virtue is the daughter of Religion. Her sole treasure is her tears.--_Madame Swetchine._

Nothing dries sooner than a tear.--_George Herbert._

My plenteous joys, wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves in drops of sorrow.--_Shakespeare._

Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew.--_Dryden._

Tears are sometimes the happiest smiles of love.--_Stendhal._

~Tediousness.~--The sin of excessive length.--_s.h.i.+rley._

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.--_Shakespeare._

~Teeth.~--Teeth like falling snow for white.--~Cowley.~

Such a pearly row of teeth that sovereignty would have p.a.w.ned her jewels for them.--_Sterne._

~Temperance.~--Temperance puts wood on the fire, meal in the barrel, flour in the tub, money in the purse, credit in the country, contentment in the house, clothes on the back, and vigor in the body.--_Franklin._

I consider the temperance cause the foundation of all social and political reform.--_Cobden._

If temperance prevails, then education can prevail; if temperance fails, then education must fail.--_Horace Mann._

Temperance to be a virtue must be free and not forced. Virtue may be defended, as vice may be withstood, by a statute, but no virtue is or can be created by a law, any more than by a battering ram a temple or obelisk can be reared.--_Bartol._

If you wish to keep the mind clear and the body healthy, abstain from all fermented liquors.--_Sydney Smith._

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.--_Voltaire._

He who would keep himself to himself should imitate the dumb animals, and drink water.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

~Temptation.~--No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted.--~George Eliot.~

Temptation is a fearful word. It indicates the beginning of a possible series of infinite evils. It is the ringing of an alarm bell, whose melancholy sounds may reverberate through eternity. Like the sudden, sharp cry of "Fire!" under our windows by night, it should rouse us to instantaneous action, and brace every muscle to its highest tension.--_Horace Mann._

Most confidence has still most cause to doubt.--_Dryden._

It is a most fearful fact to think of, that in every heart there is some secret spring that would be weak at the touch of temptation, and that is liable to be a.s.sailed. Fearful, and yet salutary to think of, for the thought may serve to keep our moral nature braced. It warns us that we can never stand at ease, or lie down in the field of life, without sentinels of watchfulness and camp-fires of prayer.--_Chapin._

Love cries victory when the tears of a woman become the sole defense of her virtue.--_La Fontaine._

When devils will their blackest sins put on, they do suggest at first with heavenly shows.--_Shakespeare._

The devil tempts us not: it is we tempt him, beckoning his skill with opportunity.--_George Eliot._

Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare.--_Dryden._

There are times when it would seem as if G.o.d fished with a line, and the devil with a net.--_Madame Swetchine._

~Tenderness.~--When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.--_George Eliot._

~Theatre.~--A man who enters the theatre is immediately struck with the view of so great a mult.i.tude, partic.i.p.ating of one common amus.e.m.e.nt; and experiences, from their very aspect, a superior sensibility or disposition of being affected with every sentiment which he shares with his fellow-creatures.--_Hume._

The theatre has often been at variance with the pulpit; they ought not to quarrel. How much it is to be wished that the celebration of nature and of G.o.d were intrusted to none but men of n.o.ble minds!--_Goethe._

~Theories.~--Most men take least notice of what is plain, as if that were of no use; but puzzle their thoughts, and lose themselves in those vast depths and abysses which no human understanding can fathom.--_Sherlock._

Metaphysicians can unsettle things, but they can erect nothing. They can pull down a church, but they cannot build a hovel.--_Cecil._

~Thought.~--I have asked several men what pa.s.ses in their minds when they are thinking, and I could never find any man who could think for two minutes together. Everybody has seemed to admit that it was a perpetual deviation from a particular path, and a perpetual return to it; which, imperfect as the operation is, is the only method in which we can operate with our minds to carry on any process of thought.--_Sydney Smith._

A delicate thought is a flower of the mind.--_Rollin._

Earnest men never think in vain though their thoughts may be errors.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

Though an inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, an inheritance of knowledge and wisdom cannot. The wealthy man may pay others for doing his work for him, but it is impossible to get his thinking done for him by another, or to purchase any kind of self-culture.--_Samuel Smiles._